The Day | Barack Obama’s East Village Romance

According to DNA Info, the northbound lanes of the FDR were closed from 11th Street to 14th Street following a car accident this morning. The site has no information about the crash itself.

Following a mistrial, The Post reports that a second jury has started hearing testimony in the case of a man accused of punching a woman into a coma on East 14th Street.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Neighborhood School’s library has been saved thanks in part to a $10,000 donation from the Standard East Village. “We should be raising money for extras—like the trampoline,” says Marjorie Ingall, a parent. “Not the library and the arts program. But this is the new reality. We have to get better at fundraising.”

In Vanity Fair’s excerpt from a forthcoming biography of Barack Obama, David Maranass reveals that the President met one of his old girlfriends at a party in the East Village, at 240 East 13th Street. “I’m pretty sure we had dinner maybe the Wednesday after,” recalls Genevieve Cook of the encounter in 1983. “I think maybe he cooked me dinner. Then we went and talked in his bedroom. And then I spent the night. It all felt very inevitable.”

Jimmy Webb, owner of St. Marks longtimer Trash & Vaudeville, tells Washington Square News that he isn’t necessarily pleased with changes on the block over the years. “I miss my little pack of hookers out front. I miss my local beat policeman. I miss the kids handing out fliers for their bands,” he says, adding, “With no disrespect toward anything Asian, everything on the block is the same. I’m really kind of offended when I hear it called Little Tokyo. This is the Lower East Side. The purpose of the Lower East Side is diversity of culture.”

Variety reviews “Chronicling a Crisis,” an autobiographical film by Amos Kollek in which “the Israeli helmer turns his camera on his woeful self and on Robin Remias, an East Village junkie whose downward spiral provides an exaggerated metaphor for Kollek’s own.”

Neighborhoodr is soliciting donations that will help Mosaic Man in “commemorating Woodstock, a place dear to his heart, that had a tremendous influence on his work we’ve all enjoyed for years.”

UrbanDaddy gets word that Proletariat, a 10-seat bar tucked behind Jane’s Sweet Buns, will serve “a daily rotating menu of stuff that comes to the city maybe once a year. And versions of a Dark and Stormy that are strictly made with porters and hop tinctures.” Readers of The Local will recall that Community Board 3’s debate over the dessert shop’s beer-and-wine license was so contentious it led one member of the board to declare “World War III at C.B. 3.”

Co.Design has photos of the temporarily remodeled Odin store. A firm called Snarkitechture has turned the black store white.

East Village Eats hears that the Sunburnt Cow, which was closed last summer, is back at it, complete with half-price happy hour and “endless brunch.”

Eater posts the menu for the takeout window that Vandaag will open on East Sixth Street this weekend: “The menu for the Wurstelstand includes pickled beef franks, minced pork sausages, and a double-dog made with hunter’s sausage and boudin blanc.”

Eater also brings word of a special dinner Momofuku Noodle Bar is hosting with musician Questlove on May 20: “The restaurant will serve Questlove’s drumsticks that night, with all proceeds going to benefit the Food Bank for New York City.”

How Does Your School Stack Up?

Hello, Neighbors

The Local was a journalistic collaboration designed to reflect the richness of the East Village, report on its issues and concerns, give voice to its people and create a space for our neighbors to tell stories about themselves. It was operated by the students and faculty of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, in collaboration with The New York Times, which provides supervision to ensure that the blog remains impartial, reporting-based, thorough and rooted in Times standards. Read more »